- Drooms provides data room for major transaction involving GALERIA Kaufhof
- International real estate boom – Drooms offers a transaction platform for efficient processes
Frankfurt/Zug, 16 February 2016 – Following an investment volume of EUR 246.3 billion on the European commercial real estate market last year, consultants at Cushman & Wakefield (C&W) have designated 2015 as a new record year. This figure beats the previous transaction record, which was set in 2007 when a volume of EUR 230.5 billion was recorded. With growth of over 40%, Germany leads the way in Europe. The total volume of German real estate transactions amounted to EUR 50.9 billion. An assessment of the top transactions in 2015 revealed that nine of the 15 largest real estate sales were processed with the help of the virtual data room solution from Drooms. Of these, the sale of the METRO GROUP’s GALERIA Kaufhof chain of department stores for EUR 2.825 billion was the year’s largest real estate deal. Alexandre Grellier, Managing Director at Drooms: “This result underlines Drooms’ status as market leaders in supporting commercial real estate transactions with our virtual data room solution.”
Transparency and standardisation of increasing market importance
Despite volatility on the financial markets, C&W has the view that the persistent low interest rate environment in addition to central banks continuing relaxed monetary policies should maintain investor demand on the German real estate market. However, the industry does face major challenges: as transaction volumes rise, so too does the importance of compliance and data governance. This means that transparency will also be a hot topic. Furthermore, the subject of efficiency will return to prominence as investors seek to fully capitalise on the long-term positive market sentiment in Germany. A centralised, coordinated and transparent document administration system for the ongoing management of real estate portfolios has a real impact on the efficiency of future transactions. A Drooms survey of real estate experts conducted in 2015 revealed that just 16% of respondents assessed commercial real estate transactions as very efficient in the current market environment. Above all, standardisation was seen as one area for improvement in terms of the efficiency of commercial real estate transactions. For example, there is no standardised form for the structure, content and technical requirements to ensure due diligence is carried out efficiently in a virtual data room. Grellier believes that the significance of standards, which facilitate efficient due diligence processes and therefore help to keep down the overall transaction cost, should not be underestimated: “All parties involved in transactions worth millions, if not billions, stand to benefit from standardisation. After all, time is money, particularly where legal, tax and project consultants via third parties are concerned.”
